Looking for opins on Protection from Evil & Charm Monster . . .

[Forrester]

Two completely different questions . . . looking for opins.

1) Protection from Evil gives a +2 bonus to AC, some saves, and protects from Charms, Dominate Person, and (drum roll, please), ALL summoned creatures.

Hence the possible problem, as a player in my campaign wants to play a specialized sorcerer -- no schools but Conjuration and Divination. And I expect many of his enemies will have Protection from Evil down the line, possibly as a part of their permanent magic items.

I know this is a stupid question, but do you think it'd be "unbalanced" to change the Prot. from Evil. description such that it didn't protect the target from summoned creatures? I mean, hell, it's a 1st level spell. An alternative might be to say that it only works if the target doesn't move from his original space (which is theoretically a little circle that gets traced around him, during that partial action in which the spell is cast . . . yeah, that makes a lot of sense).

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2) The duration of Charm Monster is 1 day/level. And the bard in my group is already starting to drool. I'm wondering what the experience of other DMs has been re this spell . . . broken, or no, at that duration? I have this vision of him walking around with a dozen or so Purple Worms as semi-permanent buddies.


TIA!

 

[Darkness]

I don't see much of a problem with the purple worms...

After all, there will be slight communication problems, as purple worms have Int 1 and don't know any languages.
Further, there is the issue of feeding them.
What's more, they are slow (Speed 20', burrow 20', swim 10') and so will slow down the party considerably if they are to keep up - and I wouldn't let a purple worm stray far from my side, as it's bound to get confused and lost somewhere along the way (Int 1) and only the gods know what (or whom) it might eat if left to its own purposes.
Lastly, NPCs' reactions might be... interesting, to say the least - and if the worms stay burrowed all the time, they'll either damage something by undermining it or else get lost sooner or later...

 

[Forrester]

I suppose the dozen purple worms isn't practically going to be a difficulty, but you still get the gist -- he can have a dozen or so creatures charmed to him for an indefinite length of time. That's a lot of "best friends" following him around . Think that might be overpowered for a 7th level character (bard, in this case).

He's about to make 7th level . . . I honestly don't know how much of a problem it's going to be, but the player wants to know if I'm going to errata it to one hour/level (like Charm Person).

Hence my trolling for opinions. Anyone out there have problems with wizards or bards Charming a dozen Best Friends?

 

[Victim]

Maybe you could convince the sorcerer to take some of the Dispel magic spells to knock down Prot Evil/Good.

I don't think it's very feasible to keep lots of people charmed at once. It also wouldn't be very legal. Remember that spellcasting is fairly obvious, which could ruin some plans.

 

[Femerus the Gnecro]

Here's an idea...

Have a druid awaken the purple worm, at which point it will be able to better communicate with the bard. THEN charm it.

Or, when it makes its saving throw, have it pretend to be charmed (higher int ) until it can eat the bard and digest him happily.

-F

 

[Forrester]

Or, when it makes its saving throw, have it pretend to be charmed (higher int ) until it can eat the bard and digest him happily.

-F

Don't spellcasters know when a target has failed (or made) a save against their spell, though? Faking being Charmed is a great idea . . . not sure that it's plausible, though.

 

[Sejs]

There's a problem with charming purple worms, or really any monster that has low intelligence (int 1 worm) and / or no language skills (purple worms for instance). Charm Monster makes the target of the spell amiable to the caster. Only. Not the caster's friends, not the townsfolks that happen to come into contact with the caster, noone else. Personally I'd say let him learn this the hard way. Charm a Purple Worm and the worm'll think ...'okay.. Bard = Friend, don't eat friend. Small-Fast-Salty Creatures near Friend = Food or Threat. Kill.' and the bard will have no way to tell the beast otherwise. It understands no speech and is possibly too dim to even understand hand guestures / pantomime.


As for protection from evil - take a look at the spell description more.. it does say that the effect moves with the recipient of the spell, but the rub is ...

...this causes the natural weapon attacks of such creatures to fail and the creatures to recoil if such attacks require touching the warded creature. Good elementals and outsiders are immune to this effect. The protection against contact by summoned or conjured creatures ends if the warded creature makes an attack against or tries to force the barrier against the blocked creature...

... so if the person with Prot from Evil attack the summoned creature they're not warded anymore. And most importantly the spell seems to only ward against creatures that are of the alignment warded against. Good creatures ignore Protection from Evil, .. Evil creatures ignore Protection from Good. Same with Lawful or Chaotic creatures. There would be a DM call concerning Neutral creatures. But if the sorcerer would have some problems with people Prot From X'ing his summoned monsters, just have him know what to summon against what. Only divine casters will get in trouble for summoning creatures that are of an opposing alignment to their own.